Vacating vs. touring

Regular blogging forces you to think, and for me that's meant thinking hard about why people leave home to visit elsewhere.

For readers of a travel blog, are you here because you're looking for a place in North Carolina to vacation? Or do you just like to visit - tour, if you will - different towns or attractions in the state? There's a difference, and the question for me is which type of traveler is Nearly There trying to serve?

In large measure, my answer is tourists, although surely you'll find places to vacation if you follow this blog.

Before I proceed, a few definitions...totally subjective on my part.

Vacation, to me, is getting away. It's rest, recuperate, get in some recreation. You can go to the beach or camp on the side of a mountain, and never leave your vacation spot.

Tourism, on the other hand, has a purpose. It's to go to see. Or go to learn. Or go to experience. To me, touring usually is a day trip, or an overnight. Maybe a long weekend. But it's short-lived and focused. We've spent an overnight near Bath to give us a full day of exploring that old village. Greensboro is no vacation paradise, but we've driven there a few times, to spend the day at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park or to discover Bicentennial Greenway.

Sure, touring can be part of vacating. What's a week in Emerald Isle without a day trip to Beaufort or the occasional visit to Fort Macon?

So there's vacating and there's touring, and the twain can meet. But not necessarily so.

The usual focus for Nearly There will be tourism, but you'll find a dose of vacating, too.


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